Lesson 9

With Lesson 9 we cover the final chapter of Traci’s Transformational Health Principles… Wow!  What a journey!

I wasn’t able to get a video lesson done for this week.  Lame of me, yes I know.  Fortunately, over the course of our mentoring together I have discovered an unexpected jewel of a gift:  The sweetest and dearest friendships have been formed and you have been so patient and inspiring of me, as your mentor, I’d have thought I was the one taking lessons from you!  Some have asked me how I do it all.  As evidenced- I don’t!  But hey- as I have said all along, we do what we can, where we can, with what we have.  Balancing family and mentoring is a tightrope act.  We do our best- and for heaven’s sake- let us enjoy the journey for the value gained lies therein.  It is what we have been learning as we go along that has been changing our lives forever.

Next Friday will be your final accountability email.  And then we are done!  Thank you for participating!
I will let you know who our final winners are for having done everything asked of them, as I still have a surprise for those who have followed the course with exactness… or at least really worked hard to!  I am excited to share that with you!  I will make a blog post next week about it!

Now- for lesson 9!

I will admit, these ideas are still “out there” waiting for me to grasp them.  There is knowing, and then there is doing.  As you have experienced, there is a steep learning curve we go through when we move from what we know in our brain, to what we do in real life.  We make lots of mistakes on the way- that is how we learn best!  (darn!)  So we just go out and do it! 

For example, I love what Mary said on facebook:

“I have been sprouting my oats, they look like wheat, I did not think they would sprout, but this morning they had tails like the rice. So I made waffles with them. I will freeze the waffles, I only bought a few oats just to see what they would do, they tripled in volume.”

As a mentor, I could have never taught her that.  She broke through the learning curve by her experience and it taught her more that reading about it ever could! 

So it is with the cleansing.  It is so new to many of us, me included, that it takes making those steps into the unknown to push through that learning curve.

What I have learned is the importance of keeping the bowels open so that toxins will have an exit.  If you have been doing the bowel cleansing as we talked about previously, you will now be ready to move into some of the unknown we read about in Chapter 9.

Now is a good time to go back and quickly review Chapter 1 of Traci’s Transformational Health Principles.  What is included in the elimination systems of our body?  Where does waste exit the body?  These are the body systems which we want to focus on cleansing. 

Here is a list from Chapter 1, page 4, where Traci talks about ways we can naturally keep our bodies healthy:

1.  Keep the bowels moving regularly
2.  Maintain good hydration.
3.  Breath clean air.
4.  Eat good foods (non-mucus forming)
5.  Use natural types of soaps, lotions, and skin care products.
6.  Wear breathable clothing.

The cleansing I have done and really love is the simplest, most straight forward of all the cleanses: skin cleansing. I have found it to be extremely refreshing and easy to do! Highly recommended!  The skin cleanse is on page 178 of Traci’s Transformational Health Principles.

In starting out I had to wonder what types of personal care products Traci used.  The labels, often written in Latin, are confusing to me — hence, even something natural sounds like something that shouldn’t be there.  Then I started to notice that these items were taken from their natural element and something had to preserve them or else they would spoil.  That is when I started noticing that these “natural” soaps and lotions also contained preservatives.

I have combined the skin cleansing from chapter 9 with an “all natural” approach to skin care products.  I will share these with you now.   My husband, Shaun, told me I had a “product” addiction- I had to have my products!  Now I can see there is wisdom in tossing them.  I really am surprised at how simple and easy it is to go natural!

  • Deodorant Soap:  We used it all the time, just like everyone else.  Shaun and I discussed the need for this and decided that, unless one is working hard and getting very dirty, one doesn’t need it at all.  Back in the “olden days” people didn’t bathe as often and worked harder.  They needed something to take the grime off.  Today, we hardly break a sweat and rarely see true dirt, not to mention the fact that we take hot showers on a daily basis… I mean really- how dirty are we actually getting?  We scrub down with plain hot water and if we are really dirty we use a wash cloth.  There are few exceptions of when we’d actually be dirty enough need soap.  (my next step is to get a shower filter for cleaner water)

    When using soap, I began to noticed how dry my skin was … of course- I didn’t know it was the soap causing the dry skin which brings us to…

  • Lotion.  I started using skin lotion long before I ever became a teenager.  Dry, itchy, and flaky skin was my curse.  I admired my Grandma’s Vaseline Intensive Care.  I loved to smell it.  I’d sneak it whenever I used her bathroom. 

    I started out thinking I just needed it for my hands.  Then I needed it for my legs.  Of course, my arms, feet, and face soon followed.  At the height of my lotion obsession I was lathering myself all over after every shower and before going out anywhere.  You want to know something crazy funny about this?  I discovered the lotion was drying out my skin!  What a system, huh!  Sell lotion that dries out the skin so more has to be used!

    What do I use now?  Raw, pure coconut oil.  I use it right after I shower or wash my hands and my skin is still damp.  I even use it on my face.  At first I thought I would end up all greasy- but that is what petroleum products do.  The coconut oil rubs into the skin nicely.  Now my skin both feels wonderful and smells wonderful!  If the oil solidifies I simply run the bottle under hot water. 

    I scoop from my big jar, melt it down, and pour it into a squeeze container.  That way I’m contaminating neither my big container nor my squeeze container by dipping fingers in.  Coconut oil is so versatile it can be used in all sensitive areas of the body as well as all rough areas.  It is just about perfect.

  • Hand Soap has the same effect as lotion, only multiplied!  Whenever I use hand soap my skin starts to crack and peel.  My hands feel like the skin is going to fall off… that couldn’t be good!  I am in search of a good hand soap as we finish up the last of our huge bottle of anti-bacterial.  Send any recommendations my way!

    I’ve stopped using hand soap as much as I can.  I use friction and water to clean.  But something in me says that the kids’ bathroom still needs it.  I may be able to understand how to scrub my hands clean but kids just don’t like to take that kind of time.  Plus, I do like to use soap if I have been cleaning the bathrooms or changing diapers and such.

    I love using the bathroom at the health food store.  They have a delightful smelling lavender soap and samples of lotion.  That will become our bathroom of choice while out and about. 

  • Shampoo and Conditioner This may be more than some want to hear… but this is how it went down.  I noticed Shaun didn’t use any shampoo.  I laughed at him— how gross!  Then he told me about how shampoo made his scalp and hair dry out.  It took me a while before I could get use to this idea for myself.  It was when I was reading through Traci’s book again and doing some review of what I’d been learning that I decided to take a leap.  Now don’t get us wrong here- we still wash our hair with water and scrub the scalp very well every day- we just don’t use shampoo.  Well- not true- I still use it once a week.  I don’t know if it is because I have long hair or because I use a little hairspray once in a while but I do need a weekly washing.  I am working my way through the industrial sized salon formula.  It will be a while before I start trying out the natural varieties… Maybe Traci or one of you could give us some pointers here. 

    I have used different teas as a hair wash that worked very well.  I didn’t make a recipe but as I recall I used the “Food Tea” recipe from http://www.kalsschool.com/ as a base and added other herbs to it.  When I went to Mexico I brought some of the Food Tea with me and was so glad after getting a sunburn on my scalp to be able to make some up, cool it down, and use to relieve the pain and itching.

    In not using shampoo and conditioner my greatest concern was tangled hair.  I knew that if I didn’t use a conditioner my hair would knot and tangle so I assumed one must always use conditioner.  I was amazed to find out that my hair was fine if I just washed with water.  It combed out nicely.  If I use shampoo my hair gets weird- dry- plastic like.  Conditioner becomes a must.

    So there you have it, at least for a few products.  Let us know if you’d like more product reviews and we’ll see what we can come up with.  If you have any stories you’d like to share, let us know your input and we’ll put it to good use!

This concludes Lesson 9.  I can hardly wait to tell you about your prize for next week!  Be sure to finish up this final chapter so you can be included = ) -Linda 

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